


Ghosts for the Hereafter

by doorstepdreams



Series: Missing Scenes [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Flirting, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Oblivious Bitty, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, The Haus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorstepdreams/pseuds/doorstepdreams
Summary: Set the morning after my fic The Prince (also in this series).





	Ghosts for the Hereafter

**Author's Note:**

> The rating is for Shitty's language and for brief mention of homophobia in Bitty's past, just in case!
> 
> Bitty is absolutely fine with all of the boys’ physical affection, even of the smothering kind. No worries of dubcon here. It’s often flirting but very safe flirting. 
> 
> For tumblr users: angeryginger who prompted it, alphacrone who said I could share my bittyholtz pining with her and gutsybitsies who has been drowning in bittyholtz with me

“Bittleton!” Holster rumbled against the head of gold hair on his pillow. “Bittenmeister! Time to rise, Bittles and Bits.”

“Will you shut uuuup?”

“I’m going to bite your cowlick, little dude.”

“Don’t!”

“Mmmmf,” Holster’s voice was muffled by the patch of hair in his teeth. “Gonna shake you like a little lion cub, grrrrrr.”

Bitty turned his laughing face over one shoulder, tugging his hair free. Holster manhandled him the rest of the way, until Bitty was pillowed on his shoulder. Bitty snuggled into the warmth greedily, and gave a tiny sigh of contentment.

“Did one of y’all carry me in here?” He rubbed one eye and peered up at Holster with the other. “Don’t ‘member walkin’ up here on my own.”

“Yeah, Jack did. You fell asleep in his room.”

Holster leaned over to reach for his glasses, as he surreptitiously watched Bitty’s face.

Bitty’s expression suddenly turned tender. “Oh yeah, he was talking to me. He told me about… that time, before the draft.”

“He did, did he?”

Holster’s eyebrows were raised but otherwise remained impassive. He busied himself by pressing Bitty’s smaller hands flat between his own, effectively hiding them from view.

“That’s pretty big stuff, Bitto. Jack must be warming up to you.”

From the angle of Bitty’s head on his chest, Holster could see Bitty’s smile by the way his cheeks lifted ever so slightly and his eyelashes fluttered downwards.

Holster huffed and pulled him up higher to press their heads together, guiding Bitty’s legs to rest over his own. A little more fidgeting and they were slotted together comfortably. This was in part thanks to Holster waking up early enough to get his body _settled down_ before waking Bitty.

“Hey, Holtzy?”

“Yes, bruhttle?”

“How’s about you and I cancel graduation? Like, for good. Just say no thanks, no one’s graduatin’ from here on out and we’re all stayin’ put. Sound good?”

Bitty’s hand was shaking slightly where he was tugging fretfully at a loose thread in the blanket. His eyes were clear but the smile on his face was bitter.

Holster pressed a solid kiss to his forehead and murmured, “You got it, babe” against Bitty’s skin.

He indulged in squeezing Bitty hard but not enough to hurt. He and Ransom had found, after The Talk Shitty had given them a few months ago, that Bitty loved this kind of smothering.

_“Touch starved; it’s why Bitty jumps a mile whenever someone gets near him if he didn’t see them coming. He’s not used to trusting it when people touch him.”_

_Shitty looked like some sort of druid or mage, sat in a hanging cloud of smoke as the living room darkened into mid-evening. He leaned intently from where he was crouched on the sofa chair and pointed his blunt at the pair of them on the couch, as if he were casting a spell._

_“Some of the fuckers Bitty grew up around would have treated him like poison when they worked out what he was. He’d have seen them recoil from being too near him. People who used to hug him and kiss him as a baby, would avoid so much as sitting next to him. Not just random assholes either. Family, close friends. Their kids too.”_

_Ransom’s and Holster’s faces were stricken in the slight glare of the Netflix home screen on the TV. They both looked down to where Bitty was tucked backwards under Holster’s arm and sleeping peacefully with his legs curled into a blanket._

_“Little Bits?” Ransom whispered._

_“No one could be like that to Bitty.” Holster’s voice was just as quiet._

_Shitty’s expression remained dark and stern. He exhaled a plume of thick smoke from the sides of his mouth and nodded._

_“So you two keep on doing what you’re doing. Pick him up, hold him, touch him wherever he won’t feel creeped out. I know Jack says Bitty’s off limits but don’t let Bitty know that or he’ll interpret it as you guys rejecting him. Not just sexually but as a friend. Aright?”_

_The pair of them nodded gravely. Bitty scrunched around Holster’s arm, sleeping on unawares._

_Unseen on the stairs, Jack looked at nothing and gripped his hands together._

 

In the present, Holster held Bitty close and began to hum aimlessly under his breath. The rumble in his chest always made Bitty loose and pliant as a kitten.

They lay there for another fifteen minutes in all; Holster manhandled Bitty gently and tickled him everywhere with his morning stubble while Bitty showed him funny Vines on Holster’s phone.

It was a rare thing to have Bitty off his own phone for so long, even if most of that had been spent with Jack the night before.

Above them Ransom started his absurdly high-pitched giggle and Holster smiled.

“C’mon Bits, do it!”

Bitty kept laughing before he could finish.

“I w- I won’t-, oh lord! _I won’t hesitate, betch!_ ”

The bunk beds creaked as four hundred combined pounds (and some change) of frat boy rolled about with laughter.

“Alright you two, my belly says it’s time for breakfast. Oof! Holtzy, how d’you propose I make pancakes with you lyin’ on top of me? Git off, you big ol’ moose!”

“Dude, my clothes are so huge on you I bet I could fit in there with you…”

Bitty screeched and slapped at Holster’s huge head under his shirt. It got stuck on his giant shoulders until Bitty lifted it up and set him free.

Holster held himself up on his elbows just enough to start peppering Bitty’s face with bristly kisses, laughing at Bitty’s half-hearted attempts to push him off. The thud of Ransom landing on the floor next to them made Holster pull away and allow Bitty to get up.

“Breakfast downstairs in fifteen, folks!”

Ransom and Holster's whoops were joined with more mellow but enthusiastic sounds from Jack’s and Lardo’s rooms. They didn’t so much hear Shitty as they heard the struggle of Bitty being tackled by him.

Holster made to sit up, and his love-drunk smile was met with Ransom’s accusing hand pointing directly in his face.

“Dude. _Careful._ ”

An incalculable amount of information passed between them in silence, and they simply nodded at each other.

Holster grabbed Ransom’s hand and kissed the extended pointer finger solemnly.

“Bro. You just kissed my tip.”

A beat more silence and then they were both rolling about and laughing, the word “tip” setting them off in fresh bouts of giggles each time one of them said it.

Once they were both clad respectably in bathrobes and slippers they headed downstairs, still snorting and laughing occasionally. Lardo barged past them both in what anyone else would term eagerness.

The kitchen was already cozed with the smell of coffee and pancake batter. Shitty sat naked and perusing the paper, handing off a section to Lardo as she settled at the table. Music played softly and even Ransom and Holster calmed to their lowest volume setting in the serenity of the scene.

Huddled at the stove top was Bitty, apron tied over Holster’s clothes, and Jack. They talked quietly and Bitty smiled up at Jack as if he’d hung the moon and stars.

 _If Bitty ever looks at me like that_ , Holster thought, _Jack and his rules can both take a fucking hike._

**Author's Note:**

> As always thank you to wrathofthestag for beta!
> 
> Title from The Sun and the Moon by The Pogues


End file.
